It’s been an uphill battle in the Republican district, and it didn’t get any easier for Bryce when a special interest group released an attack ad featuring Bryce’s brother.

Awkward.

Brother James never mentioned his brother’s name in the ad. He didn’t have to.

It didn’t go over well with their mom.

“I’m used to my sons getting into disagreements with each other — every mom is. And I understand that my boys see the world differently when it comes to politics,” Nancy Bryce wrote in a letter provided to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel by the Bryce campaign.

“There is now a group of people from Washington who consider it a good idea to pit my boys against each other for their own political gain. But they didn’t consider a mother’s pain at seeing her children used as tools in a political fight, splashed with millions of dollars of ads across the airwaves.”

That didn’t end the sibling squabble.

James told a radio interviewer today “it’s unconscionable a campaign would take advantage of a vulnerable and elderly mother and use her as a pawn in an ad like that.” (Listen to the interview)

He said the writing in the letter his brother’s campaign provided from the mother wasn’t hers.

About the blogger

Bob Collins has been with Minnesota Public Radio since 1992, emigrating to Minnesota from Massachusetts. He was senior editor of news in the ’90s, ran MPR’s political unit, created the MPR News regional website, invented the popular Select A Candidate, started several blogs, and every day laments that his Minnesota Fantasy Legislature project never caught on.

NewsCut is a blog featuring observations about the news. It provides a forum for an online discussion and debate about events that might not typically make the front page. NewsCut posts are not news stories.